OUTBREAK!

Deadly Middle East virus spreads to Egypt

(Associated Press) Egyptian authorities have detected the first case of a dangerous SARS-like virus in the country, the state news agency said Saturday.

MENA said a 27-year-old civil engineer was diagnosed Saturday morning after returning from Saudi Arabia, where the Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, has been centered. It said the man was quarantined upon his arrival at Cairo airport Friday and transported to a nearby hospital.

MERS belongs to a family of viruses known as coronaviruses that include both the common cold and SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, which killed some 800 people in a global outbreak in 2003.